Digby catches up with the latest New York Times effort by David E. Sanger and David Johnston to elaborate on the unraveling CIA leak case. I always feel when reading the NYT like I’m looking through a haze — they struggle to maintain such a distance from their subject, to not say anything that might further jeopardize their access to information, that it always winds up being an effort in reading hieroglyphics to try and decipher the code they are writing in.

But I thought this stood out:

But in one of those odd twists in the unpredictable world of news leaks, neither of the reporters Mr. Libby met, Bob Woodward of The Washington Post or Judith Miller, then of The New York Times, reported a word of it under their own bylines. In fact, other reporters working on the story were talking to senior officials who were warning that the uranium information in the intelligence estimate was dubious at best.

I’ve never believed Jill Abramson’s story that Judy never pitched her the idea. I actually believe Judy on this one — I think she absolutely did try to get them to print it, like the dutiful operative she is. But at the time, Judy had returned from Iraq and she was on probation. Her reporting was highly suspect and she had two official "minders" to watch over anything she tried to put in print, and one of those minders was David Johnston.

According to Murray Waas, Libby spoke with Judy four times about this topic — on June 23, July 8 and July 12 (twice). Each time he gave her more information about what the White House was trying to put forward as the official Wilson story, but the NYT never bit.

Mr. Fitzgerald, in his filing, said that Mr. Libby had been authorized to tell Judith Miller, then a reporter for The New York Times, on July 8, 2003, that a key finding of the 2002 intelligence estimate on Iraq was that Baghdad had been vigorously seeking to acquire uranium from Africa.

But a week earlier, in an interview in his State Department office, Mr. Powell told three other reporters for The Times that intelligence agencies had essentially rejected that contention, and were "no longer carrying it as a credible item" by early 2003, when he was preparing to make the case against Iraq at the United Nations.

I’m guessing that at the same time Judy was coming back to the Times and pleading with them to publish her bogus story, other reporters (possibly including Johnston himself, but I have no idea) were hearing quite a different story from other members of the Administration. Judy would then go back to Scooter and say "you’ve got to give me more, they not buying it." After Joe Wilson’s article was published on July 6, Libby probably got desperate enough to drag out the NIE, Wilson’s trip report and one other classified documents in order to close the deal.

According to Waas, Libby gave Judy even more information on their July 12 calls. Emptywheel has an excellent rundown of the sequence of events. But one thing seems clear — the administration handoff to Judy that had worked so well in the runup to war, which BooMan has done such a good job of documenting, didn’t work this time.

Bill Keller is going to be answering questions from Times readers, it seems. Sounds a bit canned but it’s a first step. It would be really nice if he cut through all the fog and cleared some of this stuff up.

(note: this post was changed from an earlier version which carried another quote from the April 8 NYT article)

Jane – I am really glad you picked up on this! It seems so obvious that by the time of the Valerie Flame notation, the Times was very well aware they had been played by the admin. The question is, why didn’t they just come clean & “report” that they had been fed false info in the run up to the Iraq War. That in itself would’ve made a great story and sold lots of papers. At least you would think so.

The more I look at it, the more I donâ€™t understand any narrative that could make the Bush â€œauthorizationâ€ a declassification, and the more it looks like (possibly illegal) domestic propaganda. To start with, pursuant to the definitions provided in the Executive Order, declassifying something means making it â€œunclassified.â€ While I would agree that you can do that with a portion of a document, as opposed to full document, I donâ€™t see how you have a covert declassification. ???????? How can the genesis to â€œunclassifiedâ€ occur if it is kept as a â€œsecretâ€ that the declassification has occurred?

I can see where you can argue that there was an approval to disseminate to another person (say Libby or Miller) but dissemination is a different thing, and handled differently, than declassification (plus, Bush, McClellan and other have specifically said what he did was â€œdeclassifyâ€ not authorize a limited dissemination). When even other cabinet members are specifically asking about the same NIE information and are not being allowed to release that information — that information is not â€œunclassified.â€ How can it be unclassified, but cabinet members cannot release it publicly to the public? The argument that, â€œwell, it was unclassified, we just didnâ€™t tell the cabinet or agencies because it was â€˜secretâ€™ that it was unclassifiedâ€ makes no sense.

It seems to me that, inherent in making something unclassified, is that the actions or orders regarding release are overt and acknowledged. When Government actions are covert, including the actions of the President and Vice President, then it seems to me that you are pretty much in â€˜covert government action to influence domestic public opinionâ€™ territory and I would wonder how you can justify such piecemeal, covert release of information without running afoul of prohibitions on covert domestic propagandizing?

I guess if you can have “secret partial covert declassification given only to hand picked operatives to spread to the American public without acknowledged government involvement”

Bush thinks his numbers will go back up if he nukes Iran. I’m a little worried about June 6th ( because it will be 666 ) and I know this has to appeal to the neo-con dark side.If the bomb drops, I’m thinking this has got to be when.

Jane, you and Christy should really consider writing a book about the ins-and-outs of this Plamegate affair. You deserve the Koufax award and more. Your coverage has been magnificent — better than an All-Pro cornerback with 4.2 speed, sticky fingers, and an uncanny eye for the ball.

Thank you… again you take out yer trusty “defogger” and illuminate the distinctions that make the difference in an argument. I think the longer this simmers out in the bright light of public awareness and as a few of the dimmer pulbs in the puditocracy begin to understand the difference between “dissemination” and “declassification” Bush’s gander-ass will be well done.

Iâ€™m guessing that at the same time Judy was coming back to the Times and pleading with them to publish her bogus story, other reporters (possibly including Johnston himself, but I have no idea) were hearing quite a different story from other members of the Administration. Judy would then go back to Scooter and say “youâ€™ve got to give me more, they not buying it.” After Joe Wilsonâ€™s article was published on July 6, Libby probably got desperate enough to drag out the NIE, Wilsonâ€™s trip report and one other classified document in order to close the deal.

Let’s see whether these conjectures are plausible: was it solely Judy’s request for more information (and wasn’t she barred at that time from further reporting on intelligence matters?) that prompted Scooter to disclose classified information to Judy? Was Valerie Plame Wilson’s covert status part of what was disclosed then?

OT: Boxer on Hardball had a great line that jumped out at us: a Congress owned and operated by Karl Rove. The key = “owned and operated by Karl Rove.” Who elected that schmuck? And to think the rightwing went ballistic on two Clintons for one. We’ve got a two-fer: Bush-Rove. Bush-Cheney. Mix that in with Lou Dobbs drumbeat about the war on the middle class and there’s an economic issue to pound the Rethugs with from now to Election Day.

Biden’s given us a mission: get the nonvoters back in the process and it won’t even be close.

As Boxer said tonight, give us [Dems] a chance. We’re not perfect, but we can do better. [Correct quotes-see videoclip or transcript, I’m paraphrasing here.]

EPU’d, but addresses #7, Sophist
(at the end)
join in more often, bushbehindbars! We love to hear how wonderful we are!!!
kidding, but please come out of hiding, nice to meet you.

Thanks to everyone for the economic information. I am not very tuned in to the finer details and always appreciate your updates and analysis.
To follow up on Hughâ€™s post, I really feel that W was following a butterfly in the garden when we went into Iraq when we sould have been focusing on N Koreaâ€™s nukes and on the larger economic picture. He essentially declared war on the ME and has not paid much attention to anything else, imo, because of his messianic vision of himself at the gates after the Rapture. I think we often forget that connection for him; (not a bible person) isnâ€™t there evidence, according to the RW evangelicals that this is all preordained and that Bush is the chosen one??? I think thatâ€™s what scares me most, that he might as well have an explosive belt on himself.

p.s. I still think that Der Feurerchimp may hang on the exposure of Valerie Plame as a NOC…it seems clear that he didn’t follow procedure in gettin the right folks ta sign-off. The war in Iran is his final distraction…

Nat’s fans boo DeadEye:
“Cheney’s Pitch is Low at Nationals Game”
By David Nakamura Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, April 11, 2006; 2:05 PM
“The first pitch of the Washington Nationals’ second season at Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium was low and away, bouncing in the dirt before being scooped up by catcher Brian Schneider.
For that, Vice President Cheney received a round of boos from the home crowd this afternoon. But the catcalls didn’t last long before the fans cheered for the Nationals, who took the field in their white uniforms with red trim against the New York Mets…http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..41106.html

Cheney does what he wants over there and he tells Dubya what to say in little sound bites. Cheny and Rove… Dubya’s minders. Dubya can’t think on or off his feet. He just repeats sound bites over and over… Ain’t it great when these college kids sound 100x more intelligent than he is. HAHAHAHA

Mary, it’s the classic case of an inability to get their story straight. If they talk its purpose, they can’t explain the process. If they explain the process, the purpose makes no sense.

Apple Canyon 2
Gingrich was heavy into the neocons. His emphasis was more pro-Iraq War, pro-Israel, and less spread the democracy.
His foreign policy associations make this clear:
â€¢ American Enterprise Institute: Senior fellow
â€¢ National Defense University: Distinguished Visiting Scholar and Professor in February 2001
â€¢ Council on Foreign Relations: Terrorism Task Force
â€¢ Foundation for the Defense of Democracies: Advisory Board Member and Distinguished Adviser
â€¢ American Enterprise Institute: Senior Fellow
â€¢ Hoover Institution (Stanford University): Distinguished Visiting Fellow
â€¢ National Strategic Study Group: Member of the congressionally chartered National Strategic Study Group
â€¢ Committee for the Liberation of Iraq: Member of the Advisory Board)
â€¢ Defense Policy Board: Member
â€¢ United States Commission on National Security-21st Century (â€œHart-Rudman Commissionâ€): Appointed in 1999

I donâ€™t see how you have a covert declassification. ???????? How can the genesis to â€œunclassifiedâ€ occur if it is kept as a â€œsecretâ€ that the declassification has occurred?

Just to push you a bit to clarify your argument . . . .

I don’t see a problem with that. Doesn’t the government (OK, didn’t it, in the old days) declassify lots of stuff routinely without taking out ads to let people know about it.

In other words, it could be not a “covert” declassification, but just a “quiet” one. Then the declassification is not kept as a “secret” but simply as one of those quiet things that happened.

You also ask:

How can it be unclassified, but cabinet members cannot release it publicly to the public?

Easy. Tons of information in the Federal Government is never released to the public. Some of it is protected by exemptions in the Freedom of Information ACt — but it’s simply not available, not classified under national security laws. Other information is not protected, but the government still sits on it, and the President tells his Cabinet and others, “Don’t let this out.” Nothing to do with being classified or not.

You also wrote:

The argument that, â€œwell, it was unclassified, we just didnâ€™t tell the cabinet or agencies because it was â€˜secretâ€™ that it was unclassifiedâ€ makes no sense.

But if the “secret” part is not part of the national security classification system, it makes sense. That is, “we just didn’t tell the cabinet or agencies because if was a political secret that we declassified it.

By the way, I think that there may be more legs to your “covert domestic propaganda” argument, and that argument may not depend on the foregoing issues.

Pach — click on the reporter’s name in this link to write to him directly about mis-reporting the booing. Even FOX wasn’t able to ignore the booing; it clearly begins the moment BigTIme sets foot on the field. Nothing to do with the pitch (which did suck) whatsoever!

“The more I look at it, the more I donâ€™t understand any narrative that could make the Bush â€œauthorizationâ€ a declassification, and the more it looks like (possibly illegal) domestic propaganda.”

I was actually foolish enough to think that all these questions had been resolved during Watergate. I even heard John saying way back, that it was illegal for the President to use such tactics for political gain. How is it that everyone is scratching their heads again?

Jane – at 26 you stated “Mary 8 â€” I think the whole â€œdeclassificationâ€ issue just distracts from the larger issue â€” Libby leaked the contents of two documents that werenâ€™t declassified to Judy. Who authorized him to do that?”

Thank you for keeping your eyes on the prize. The question is this: Libby was unwilling to disclose the contents of a classified NIE regarding Iraq’s WMD program without first getting confirmation from Dick Cheney that George Bush had authorized its declassification. Libby was so cautious that even after he received this confirmation from Cheney, he still checked with Addington to make sure that this unorthodox declassification procedure was legitimate.

Raise your hand if you think that someone who was so cautious about the NIE would suddenly go ahead and reveal the identity of a covert CIA NOC to several journalists in rapid succession without also obtaining exactly the same confirmation from exactly the same persons?

I thought so.

If Libby wouldn’t disclose the NIE with authorization from Bush, then he wouldn’t disclose a CIA agent’s identity without the same authorization. Bush has acknowledged that he authorized the disclosure of the NIE, thus confirming that part of Libby’s story. Logic takes us the rest of the way.

As I’m reading Ray McGovern, and Mary, I’m thinking about what would happen to me if I did something comparable to what Bush has done.
It would be as though I saw a patient on Thursday but was supposed to see him on Monday. I would tell my supervisor I saw the patient and let her know how he was on Monday, and created the paperwork as though I had, but then saw him on Thursday and oops, he’s not the way I said he was at all and hadn’t been for many days. I would have to disclose it and would be fired for altering documentation. I would also very likely lose my license for a few years as this is a bad, bad thing for nurses to do. (Imagine if you were the patient or thier loved one. I think I should lose my license too) All because I couldn’t be bothered to follow the standards of nursing and the committment I make when I sign my registration every two years.

So I would end up serving coffee somewhere and Bush gets to be president. something is very wrong here.

Jane: â€œI think she absolutely did try to get them to print it, like the dutiful operative she is. But at the time, Judy had returned from Iraq and she was on probation.â€

That seems correct. According to Maureen Dowd, Millerâ€™s editors at NYT had shut her down from writing about prewar intelligence.

â€œThe Bushies once more showed incompetence by creating this elaborate daisy-chain leak and giving it to the one person in journalism who had been roped off from writing about the prewar intelligence, while her editors sorted out problems with her past W.M.D. coverage. Judy never authored an article about what Scooter gave her, either that intelligence or the identity of the woman whom she wrote down in her notebook as â€œValerie Flame.â€http://select.nytimes.com/2006…..8dowd.html

Your posts make me smile, frequently make me laugh (when I’m not crying or screaming with rage at the latest BooshCo idiocy/illegality), but this is the first time I’ve laughed out loud at a title. Norma Desmond Redux, indeed.

I hope that an intrepid reporter at the next press conference asks a question to the effect of:

“The president has acknowledged he authorized the leak of a classified national intelligence estimate in order for Scooter Libby to quote “get the truth out” about Iraq. If Scooter Libby is a person of integrity, as you have stated in the past, it stands to reason that he would get also get authorization from you before disclosing the name of a covert CIA agent, as he has acknowledged doing.

Could you please tell us for the record whether the President authorized Scooter Libby to leak Valerie Wilson’s CIA identity?

zennurse 57, that is truly appalling. It’s like everything else about this administration: just when I think they can’t go any lower, I learn something that tells me otherwise. The way our troops have been treated just sickens me.

Exactly. That is how I explained supporting Bush’s impeachment and not Clinton’s to my Oxford lawyer friend. Bush’s crimes (oh so many) are directly related to the job so he should be fired. Clinton’s were not related to the job so I gave him a pass.

The first pitch of the Washington Nationals’ second season at Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium was low and away, bouncing in the dirt before being scooped up by catcher Brian Schneider.

For that, Vice President Cheney received a round of boos from the home crowd this afternoon. But the catcalls didn’t last long before the fans cheered for the Nationals, who took the field in their white uniforms with red trim against the New York Mets.

Jane is exactly right that the declassification is not at all the issue, and Bush’s claims about “educating” the public by disclosing false information are, once again, insulting. For those who haven’t looked back at it I recommend you look up the Op-Ed “What I Knew Before the Invasion” by Bob Graham (google’ll get it).

The proposals about why the Times did not print all this stuff are plausible, as is the idea of why it finally fell to Novak.

Has anyone heard back from Hiatt? Not me. Can’t even get an answer out of Eugene Robinson or Colbert King. I guess Deb Howell will address us next Sunday and complain about our manners.

What level of civil disobedience do folks think would be appropriate to try and stop an Iran attack?

I have this vision of McClellan being replaced by a robot with two buttons. If you push domestic policy, it will say, “Ongoing investigation. If you push the foreign policy one, you’ll get, “Wild speculation, wild speculation.” Who would notice the difference?

Zennurse, excellent point, but in my mind the situation has a combination of several very powerful drivers–
- Protect our country from the evil Islamic fundies. Our fundies are good, but keep those other fundies away from our shoresâ€¦
- Grab bases to protect and eventually control “our” oil (huge for the oil industry and it’s handmaidens)
- Cripple the spread of radical Islam throughout the world,
- Bring on the rapture by pushing everything to the point of Armageddon, where the Big War is held over and in Israel and Christ shows up to distribute the medals of freedom to our guys. (ya know, just as an aside, it takes a lot of, um, I guess balls, ’cause it certainly ain’t brains, to think that YOU can somehow push Jesus H. Christ Himself to show up to your war. Were’d they get that kind of thinking?)
Did I miss anything? Oh yeah,
- Make a pile of money off the wars and homeland protection racket, and
- Create a political environment that guarantees one-party dominance and absolute control over all domestic speech and action (and all the money) (and thereâ€™s something here about dealing with Americaâ€™s growing number of darkish-complexioned people, isnâ€™t there?) Just in case the Christ doesn’t actually show up, ya’ know, like He’s busy or something, well, you’ve got your bases covered…
Well now I’ve gone and made myself depressed. Damn.

xyz – At this point, it doesn’t seem like a stretch to believe Fitzgerald has evidence demonstrating that Bush authorized the leak of Valerie Wilson’s identity. As we’ve all seen, the ample opportunities created by Fitzgerald for those involved to give up the ghost have proceeded stepwise to the top. In the last week, the light has finally shone on Bush in this matter. But in speaking up during the last week he failed to come clean. He’s toast. I don’t gamble, but I’d bet large he told some whoppers to Fitz in 2004 at the Oval Office.

I am very interested in this subject because my family has one of the few independently owned newspapers left anywhere. Dad has won awards for FOIA article exposing former LA Republican state auditor’s politically motivated invesigation/character assassinations. Our small town also had a former mayor who was fond of closed city-council meetings. It is very helpful for the public to know the playing field when it comes to what is customary and lawful. Keeping the government’s actions at all levels protects us from corruption.

In President Bushâ€™s own words: “I wanted people to see the truth and thought it made sense for people to see the truth. Youâ€™re not supposed to talk about classified information, and so I declassified the document.”

There it is in black and white. The President unitarily and secretly declassified a national security document (the NIE or National Intelligence Estimate) to ward off embarrassment and conceal past failures in an attempt to rebut critics who were saying his assertions for going to war were based on faulty intelligence.

Hindsight being 20/20 we now know, in fact, that his arguments about aluminum tubes, uranium from Niger, and ties to Osama bin Laden were 100% wrong and that his critics were correct. What many people still donâ€™t know (despite Bushâ€™s desire for us â€œto see the truthâ€) is that that very same assessment told another story â€“ that many in the intelligence community believed even then that the intelligence could not pass the most basic sniff test.

Remember when you were young and your parents told you not to lie? I do. They had two very specific reasons: A.) it is wrong to lie; and, B.) that one lie would lead to more lies to cover up the initial lie. Look no further than our current President for a perfect example of this behavior.

I would be ashamed of any President who acted so callously with our national security. This story isn’t about his legal right to declassify, but HOW he did it. If he really â€œwanted us to see the truthâ€ why was Libby ordered to pass along to a solitary reporter only the cherry-picked portions of the NIE that backed his assertions? Why did he tell the reporter to attribute it to a â€œformer hill stafferâ€? Why did he characterize a footnote about procuring uranium from Niger as a â€œkey judgmentâ€ when in fact he had already admitted â€œthose 16 wordsâ€ should not have been included in his State of the Union speech? And why did he leave out every single portion of the NIE that questioned the intelligence.

If he really wanted us â€œto see the truthâ€ why didnâ€™t he just make a speech? I know I did not get to see the truth, at least until now. But what about Congress?

Bush was also unwilling to declassify this very document for Congress in the autumn of 2002 when they were deciding whether or not to give the President the power to go to war. Donâ€™t you believe they might have made a more informed decision if they had seen the questioning of evidence from those who actually put their lives on the line to collect it? Instead his decision resulted in the outing of a CIA agent (and the front company she “worked” for), one of those people who did put her life on the line, and who ironically had sources in Iran gathering intelligence on their development of WMD.

From the evidence it is clear that Bush did not deem the document worthy of declassifying until his reelection campaign was starting, the war was going badly, and his rationale for war was being questioned. He is responsible for his decision to use a national security document for partisan political gain, ie. to cover his own butt, and such a misuse of authority is the very essence of a criminal conspiracy to defraud the United States. It is also precisely the abuse of executive power that led to the impeachment of Richard M. Nixon.

This war and this presidency is a disaster in every possible way: we have depleted our military resources and shown the world our weaknesses on an unnecessary war while facing down a much more dire situation in Iran; almost 2500 soldiers have died, most after Bush declared â€œMission Accomplishedâ€; a minimum of 30,000 Iraqis have also died and those still alive do not want us there; we have shattered our image as a freedom-loving nation by torturing, murdering and holding prisoners without due process or recourse; we took the world empathy that we had after 9/11 and drove a stake of division through the world community leaving an alliance that does not exist; we took our eyes off Afghanistan not only leaving bin Laden alive and well, but allowing the Taliban to again extend its influence over the vast majority of the country (a death sentence for converting to Christianity = democracy? progress?); we have a national debt that now equals $90,000 for every man, woman and child in America; and, just last week our Attorney General, Alberto Gonzalez, stated that he believed the President had the authority, without a warrant, to listen in on phone calls between Americans in our own country.

jim preston– howzabout taking our lead from the immigration protestors? Do not go to work, do not buy gas or anything else, let your kids have a holiday and stand in the streets with anti bushco signs for a day. Let’s see, w’s disapproval rating is 60%– how many people will participate? Lots.

I hope and believe that you are correct. Given the facts as we know them, it seems most likely that Bush authorized the Valerie Plame leak, just as he authorized the NIE leak. The two leaks were motivated by similar intents and distributed via the same channels. They are alike in so many ways that it would be surprising if they weren’t both authorized in a similar manner. And, as I have stated, Bush has already admitted that he authorized one leak.

The next question is, given what we know and given the logical inferences we can draw, why has Fitzgerald, for now, steered clear of dropping the megaton bomb right on Bush with clear, unambiguous evidence of his role in the CIA leak, choosing instead to walk us all right up to Bush’s door instead?

I’m sure that Fitzgerald has his reasons. I’d be curious as to any thoughts that those in the FDL community may have.

Scuse me while I rant. Can I just say FUCK the Washington Nationals? For more than two decades DC was delightfully free of the corporate welfare monster that is baseball. (See Bush, George W.) Now Mayor Tony Williams has brought it back, the bastard. And of course the Nats can’t play at RFK, a perfectly fine & storied & metro-friendly stadium. Nooooo. The taxation-without-representation DC taxpayers must build these billionaire baseball fucks a spanking new stadium near South Capitol Street, which is going to bring tons more mindless cars there and royally fuck up my commuting and cheap parking. Not to mention it’s already killed the finest and most legendary drag bars. Supposedly Colin Powell is one of these Wash Nats fucking corp welfare queens, i.e. investors. Quel surprise. Go live in the New Iraq you created, you fucking disgrace to humanity.

Byron York has found that Fitzgerald has issued a letter to judge Walton to issue a correction.

A few hours ago, however, Fitzgerald sent a letter to judge Reggie Walton, asking to correct his filing. The letter reads:

We are writing to correct a sentence from the Government’s Response to Defendant’s Third Motion to Compel Discovery, filed on April 5, 2006. The sentence, which is the second sentence of the second paragraph on page 23, reads, ‘Defendant understood that he was to tell Miller, among other things, that a key judgment of the NIE held that Iraq was ‘vigorously trying to procure’ uranium.” That sentence should read, “Defendant understood that he was to tell Miller, among other things, some of the key judgments of the NIE, and that the NIE stated that Iraq was ‘vigorously trying to procure’ uranium.”

The fact that York has scooped all the major news outlets is proof for me that he is in cahoots with Babs and the Scooter defense fund cabal.

“Libby was unwilling to disclose the contents of a classified NIE regarding Iraq’s WMD without first getting confirmation from Dick Cheney that George Bush had authorized its declassification.” Wouldn’t it be weird if all along Cheney and Rove were only playing chimps on a chain to Bush’s hurdy-gurdy? That in fact George IS the power in the throne. More and more it seems that this president was acutely aware precisely of decisions seemingly made by others in his name. Perhaps the veep and Rove were just lightning rods being used by the man himself to fool us and protect him. If that’s the case, I for one, would be delighted. For if this were so then it would appear to make it impossible for Bush to hide behind his underlings and might ratchet up the liklihood of impeachment and possible criminal prosecution. Could it be that I was selling Bush short, and that he should be given much more credit for micromanaging his foibles and his outrageous decisions?

This bit a little later in the NYT article you cite above, seems to absolutely confirm your instincts on this, Jane:

“Mr. Fitzgerald, in his filing, said that Mr. Libby had been authorized to tell Judith Miller, then a reporter for The New York Times, on July 8, 2003, that a key finding of the 2002 intelligence estimate on Iraq was that Baghdad had been vigorously seeking to acquire uranium from Africa.

But a week earlier, in an interview in his State Department office, Mr. Powell told three other reporters for The Times that intelligence agencies had essentially rejected that contention, and were “no longer carrying it as a credible item” by early 2003, when he was preparing to make the case against Iraq at the United Nations.”

Stephen – The PNAC person on the Hersh show on NPR is Reuel Marc Gerecht. Arrogant, supercilious, neocon lying through his teeth. When I heard his name, it was hard to understand, but Tom Ashcroft had said he was from the weekly standard, so I googled that. What a nasty mast head, I have to go wash my hands.

He’s saying diplomacy has already failed with Iran, sanctions have to have a bite, you will have the great Iran debate, but what he’s really saying is it’s happening, it’s just a matter of when.

Mary @ 4:23 pm (#8) – Prof covered this pretty well in comment #37. I’ll just add that I’ve read and heard enough lectures about giving documents to the general public without going through the proper channels that I’d never do it unless there was a serious issue that needed whistleblowing and clearly wasn’t going to get it. Losing your job is the likely result of doing that even if it’s not a classified document. The normal course is to refer the public to the public affairs office for one’s own agency or department. Unclassified government documents are generally labeled “For Official Use Only” (or FOUO), unless they are specifically meant to be for public consumption.

My own take on this is that the President and his posse were negligent if they didn’t inform the CIA or whoever the classification authority was for the NIE that it had been declassified. But, as Prof said, they are under no obligation to inform anyone else that the document’s classification had been altered. They also might, theoretically, be in trouble because of section 1.7 of the EO, which prohibits classification of data to cover up illegal activity or incompetence, or avoid embarrassment. Beyond that, though, what we have is a question of ethics – the President misused his power for political gain.

My apologies if this was covered in a previous thread, but Fitz’s diction in the recent court filing prompts me to reach out to the legal linguists on board.

In reporting on the White House damage assessment of the July 2003 Joe Wilson NYT column, Sanger and Barstow, quoting from Fitz’s filing, relate that it “was viewed in the Office of the Vice President as a direct attack on the credibility of the vice president (and the president) on a matter of signal importance: the rationale for the war in Iraq.” Is the word signal a legal term of art?

The meaning here does not comport with common usage. Ordinarily, the denotation “to incite action” applies only to contexts in which we have knowledge of a message to come, anticipating some foreordained imminent alert. Could Fitz be implying a standing White House state of readiness: any NYT column that drops the drawers on the rationale for war triggers the set plan of action, in this case a vindictive campaign to discredit Wilson and damage his wife. This reading ladens Fitz’s sentence with hints of conspiracy, the legal implications of which could serve as a signal (couldn’t resist) to those under Fitz’s scrutiny who have more to tell.

There are, of course, more banal explanations. If not a legal term of art, and if not calculated to suggest conspiracy, could signal be a misrepresentation for single, as in a matter of singular, or unmatched, importance. This misuse befalls the rest of us mortals, sure enough. But Fitz?

Can anyone clarify the legal semantics in the filing or, if not, contribute to the wild speculation (couldn’t resist)?

“why has Fitzgerald, for now, steered clear of dropping the megaton bomb right on Bush with clear, unambiguous evidence of his role in the CIA leak”
IMO, Fitz doesn’t want DeadEye or the Leaker-in-Chief to know what he knows. IMO the reason Barbara Comstock is paying/raising money for Scooter’s defense, is because Bush/Cheney are using Scooter to flush out Fitz’s evidence.

xyz @ 4:59 pm (#46) – Good point. I don’t think this proves that Libby did this with the President’s say-so, but it does suggest it’s highly unlikely that he didn’t. It’s also possible, I suppose, the Libby is lying or not remembering something and we’re getting the wrong idea.

makes sense zennurse– Gerecht is a very loud mouthed war mongering blowhard who happens to sport a not so lovely beard. blech. I also happen to hate the tenor and tone of his voice while spewing. Supercilious is a perfect description.

rw cole 59
I want to state, for the record, that I was part of the 10% on Sept 21.
So, what happens when Bush hits 100%? The Rapture? The Earth cracks open? What?
Also, does he have to it each of those marks to trigger the Bushaclypse? What if, say, interest rates hit 10% but oil only goes up to $95 per barrel? Can megasuckage on one metric make up for the others?

Thanks for that link, MsAnnaNOLA. Three cheers for your independent family newspaper. That’s not a line of work that always gains a lot of favor and praise from the ‘powers that be.’ But it happens to be a part of the solid foundation, consisting of the character and principle of its people, upon which this country was built. And we need such news outlets today more than ever.

Moi, I’m sure that the right blogosphere will jump all over this but
a)Fitz corrected it himself, which shows he is bending over backward to be fair.
b) Libby told judy (and woodward) cherry picked findings of the NIE and emphasized the uranium claim. That is not in dispute.

I’m sure that won’t matter to the wingnuts however. Funny how the same people who derided Clinton’s legalistic defenses in Lewinsky, use them when it suits them. .

More interesting is the NY Times piece, which points to the administration’s own civil war. Powell’s testimony should be interesting.

There is a significant rise in the number of cases of mumps in Iowa. In adults, this can mean big trouble. Turns out people diagnosed with mumps flew on 9 flights, on AA and Northwest.
If you travel, or know someone who does, here is the link with flight numbers and dates.http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/previe…..55d411a1_e

After inadvertantly hitting the second baseman in the face with his pitch, the vice president declared that today was the second worst day of his life. Former aide Mary Matalin leapt to Cheney’s defense, saying the second baseman should have announced himself and that Cheney, who was pitching into the sun, couldn’t see him over the pitcher’s mound.

Pachacutec, Prof, et. al. – On the AP tape (available at Crooks and Liars), it sounds like they were booing from the moment he was announced until just before he threw. Sound track goes out after that.

xyz- Re: “The next question is, given what we know and given the logical inferences we can draw, why has Fitzgerald, for now, steered clear of dropping the megaton bomb right on Bush with clear, unambiguous evidence of his role in the CIA leak, choosing instead to walk us all right up to Bushâ€™s door instead?”

I’d like to just sit with that question for a good while. Contemplating the range of reasons is too satisfying only to narrow to just one.

Ultimately, I see it as a sign of respect by Fitzgerald for the Office of the President of the United States with all the importance, pressure, and responsibility it represents. Fitzgerald has conducted this in a dignified way as it relates to publicity and offered exceeding caution to allow for Bush to act. Had Bush acted honestly and appropriately, the integrity of the Office of the POTUS might never have been cast in such doubt. At some level, I see Fitzgerald as being sensitive to the importance of the image of the Office of POTUS as a symbol for all Americans, yet undeterred in his authority to reveal the truth hidden by a man.

“Is it true Cheney hit the second baseman with his pitch?”
No, but at least he didn’t appear drunk.
DeadEye bounced a throw to the catcher from about fifty feet away. DeadEye didn’t even walk all the way out to the pitcher’s mound, probably afraid he’d fall.
Crowd booed him pretty enthusiastically as Pach noted above.

Oh and this completely proves that York is in Scooter Libby’s team back pocket. How did he get this info? It went from the judge, to team Libby, right to York. Are we seeing the right wing noise machine deployed? Why didn’t team Libby just report it. Whey did it go to the National Review and York before anyone else? I smell Rove again. These guys never learn. Isn’t this what got them in trouble in the first place?

tryggth-
I can’t see the defense pointing this mistake out to them and asking for a correction without it being hyped to the media first, I think the prosecution is just playing carefully by the rules.

anon-
yep, the nutters will go insane over this. They’re just salivating, they really believe that their dear Scooter will be vindicated.
Losers.

Thanks RW Cole
So, at 100% Bush transmogrifies into Stinkor, The Stench of Evil?
The Bushaclypse is just confined to his person–it doesn’t start raining toads or something, right?
I just wanted to know if I need to start carrying an umbrella or a gas mask or something.

Jane 26-I agree about the other docs (although, donâ€™t you expect we might hear the â€œdeclassificationâ€ argument with respect to them, as well at some point *g*) , plus the fact that he says he understood he was to tell her that the â€œvigorous pursuitâ€ was in the key judgments â€“ and thatâ€™s a fib; plus the fib of omission, re: not telling her that the vigorous pursuit has already been debunked. But I am still drawn to the conceptual part of how they can even claim that there was a declassification on the rest.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
ProfI donâ€™t see a problem with that. Doesnâ€™t the government (OK, didnâ€™t it, in the old days) declassify lots of stuff routinely without taking out ads to let people know about it.
Absolutely. The difference is that here the government WAS taking out the ad â€“ pushing Miller to â€œget it outâ€ into the public realm, but without attribution to the government (covertly). If they had taken the same doc they distributed on the 18th, marked it unclassified, and tucked it into the unclassified or declassified files â€“ that would be your scenario and I would not have a problem with that (although I tend to bet there were some FOIA requests out there and even some Congressional requests, that would have required response at that time).
But to take it and push for its publication without government attribution is like â€“ well â€“ like what they did with the payoffs for the No Child Left Behind pieces, isnâ€™t it? If they had hired Armstrong in the open and had him be a consultant and he published â€“ no harm, no foul, no covert attempt to influence public opinion. But when they cover up the governmental involvement in the release of the information that is (per Bushâ€™s now public admissions that it was to generate better public support for and opinion of the war) intended to sway political opinion â€“ thatâ€™s the covert aspect. There was no â€œIn an effort to better explain the decision process leading to war, the Govt has today released yada yadaâ€ Just a pssssst, under the table, just for you â€“ donâ€™t mention us when you print it â€“ operation. At least, thatâ€™s how it seems to me.
[[[[The argument that, â€œwell, it was unclassified, we just didnâ€™t tell the cabinet or agencies because it was â€˜secretâ€™ that it was unclassifiedâ€ makes no sense.
But if the â€œsecretâ€ part is not part of the national security classification system, it makes sense. That is, â€œwe just didnâ€™t tell the cabinet or agencies because if was a political secret that we declassified it.]]]]]
I donâ€™t follow the part about the â€œsecretâ€ part not being part of the national security classification system? I think to â€œmake unclassifiedâ€ you cannot have the fact that it is unclassified kept secret, while at the same time keeping the fact that it was (and therefore presumably still is) classified kept public. IOW, is something unclassified when, if you were not Miller and you were to ask any documentary custodian as to the status, you would be told it was classified. Did it go into the Fed Register? ;-) Itâ€™s not that they did not timely tell people that it was unclassified, it is that they covered up the change (if it existed) in status, which, it seems to me, pretty much made it â€œclassifiedâ€ that the doc was â€œdeclassifiedâ€ and that presents a conundrum. Can a document be unclassified when access to information about whether or not it is unclassified is being kept â€“ classified? Reminds me of the case about the â€œsecret lawâ€ where they were trying to assure the judge that it had been broken, but they couldnâ€™t admit it existed. At some point, you get too clever to be clever.
In any event, I donâ€™t think you can reconcile cabinet members receiving incorrect information about whether it was classified. Plus, not only was the â€œdeclassificationâ€ if it existed covert, but so was the governmental involvement in the push to publish. The unattributed, unacknowledged governmental aspect is why I donâ€™t see how you can say it was a mere declassification (even if it was routine and unclassified information, as per the No Child Left Behind example above) as opposed to a covert attempt at domestic propaganda. IOW, Iâ€™m not sure how well I stated it, but it is irrelevant whether it (or the other docs that might be classified) is declassified, if it is being covertly pushed in the media without attribution. In addition to the fact that I still donâ€™t buy classifying the status of a document (which is what the â€œ3 personâ€ limitation effectively did) and then saying the document itself is unclassified, although no one except three people are authorized to know that.

Sorry if this has already been posted: http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1191 Reuel Marc Gerecht
===Regarding the then-impending war in Iraq, Gerecht said: “If President Bush follows his own logic and compels his administration to follow him against Iraq and Iran, then he will sow the seeds for a new, safer, more liberal order in the Middle East.â€ (5)===

Cheney is as mentally sick as Chimpy. God they are both so creepy in the male over-compensating. Do they really, truly think us girls are impressed? Even if I was straight and was turned on by chimp-like morons and fat bald half-dead sneering creeps I’d still be embarrassed for them.

Sharkbabe ,
As bad as things are in this country, I cannot believe that there are not some very sane people still in positions of power.Remember , it takes two people to unlock the codes. This is some FUCKING IDIOT’S idea of ‘Brinksmanship’.Sabre rattling at it’s highest level.If clusterfuck DOES actually nuke Iran,He and Osama will both be looking for a new cave to hide in.

Well, we’ll get the ‘rebuttal’ sometime tomorrow (or early Thursday) to Fitzgerald’s explosive filing of last week. Libby’s reply to Fitzgerald’s response is due to be filed with the Court on Wednesday, April 12th.

Bustednuckles–
I hope it doesn’t come to that. I can’t believe we’re down to hoping the military refuses Bush’s crazy orders. What happens then? At that moment, the doctrine of civilian control over the military is broken. A military leadership that can say no is a military coup, essentially.

“Bush didn’t leak, he declassified,” sounds like Rove. As far as the corporate media is concerned, that’s tough to get around. I think Mary’s analysis offers a blueprint for how the corporate media can push back through declassification. Where is the the date stamped evidence that the WH took after Bush supposedly declassified the NIE? Has Bush ever declassified anything else?
IIRC in Fitz’s press conference, he stated that he had to call journalists, because there was evidence that the journalists had actually witnessed a crime. If the WH knew these documents had been “declassified,” why didn’t they tell Fitz?
Declassification requires a predetermined , date stamped paper trail. Wrt legal proceedings, a date stamped paper trail (or the absence of one) may be a much better source of evidence than Scooter’s double hearsay.

I agree that York is fed information from someone on the inside, I don’t think it’s Rove though. I honestly believe that Rove and Libby are on the outs and have felt this since the morning of Libby’s indictment. Remember the footage of Rove leaving his house all smiles and telling the reporters he was gonna have a great day and he wished them a great day too? What a bastard.

Just for the hell of it, tomorrow I’m going to go through York’s articles from this past year and see if I can figure out who he’s siding with.

Like Woodward, it may have dawned by now on Miller that she was never nearly as street smart as she once believed.

The difference being she did time in lock-up for her conceit.

The casually declassified cat now being out of the bag, and all her weeks as America’s Free Speech Warrior Behind Bars rendered superfluous, she just might be feeling a bit used. Maybe even a bit miffed. Could even be she’s really, really pissed off.

I agree with you re Jill Abramson — Jusy pitched the story to someone. Maureen Down might be read to confirm this last week in her column. MoDo said Judy didn’t print the story because she was prohibited for reporting on the subject — Dowd seems to imply Judy wanted to, but the Times refused. Indeed, can you imagine pugacious Judy (Becky) Sharp NOT pushing to report this?? Jill Abramson or someone else prevented her.

Seems logical to me, based on precedent, that Bush’s ‘declassifications’, if he bothered with them in writingâ€”or legally at all, were performed ‘retroactively’, AFTER he his secret activities were exposed to the public.

Why would he bother to ’secretly’ follow the law when he proudly flouts the law publicly?

Fitz’s very close friend Andy McCarthy writes for the Corner. If someone there got a tip off, say from Team Libby, it is not impossible that they passed it on to Fitz and got a copy of the letter as soon as it was publicly available, as a courtesy.

Nothing wrong in that on either side. There is always back channel communication in big cases. Lots of it.